Just a quick update. Have made the mounting panels for the triangle end panels of the rotating CP unit. These were CNC routed using 24mm thick plywood. I will be using bolts and inserts to secure the panels to the end-plates, for quick and easy attach/detach.

In other news, I've been experimenting with GroovyArcade, and this looks like it will do just fine to run the cab software, although I will be looking at using the attractmode frontend.

Still waiting for the artwork for the control panels, hopefully not long now. Once I have the bolt insert holes done, I'll bolt it all together and post a pic of the full rotating unit

Had another session last night and Ed and I finally managed to get the panels assembled! She rotates!

Firstly, the triangle end panels needed to be glued to their mounting pieces. I used some extra strong PVA adhesive and clamped with 3 screws, one in each corner.

As I'm going to be installing/uninstalling panels a lot during construction, I went for a bolt and insert setup.

The insert is an M6 nickel plated brass one: -

The bolts I used are M6 A2 Stainless Steel Flanged Button Head Bolts (Hex Socket Allen Screws). These are 25mm in length, which works nicely as it has 12mm ply to go through for the panel, and the brass insert is about 13mm deep.I went for the flanged ones because I thought they looked nice - but having second thoughts now, perhaps a plain domed one would look nicer.

Installing the inserts was a bit scary... it's one of those "you only get one chance" type things. Luckily they all went in fine and flush no problems...

So now we have all the bits ready to assemble!

First panel in...

Second panel in...

I'm really chuffed with how it's turned out. It's quite heavy, and very sturdy, and it's lovely and uniformly proportional (thanks mainly to the CNC machine!). A single panel only takes seconds to take off .The stainless steel shaft fits beautifully and the free-rotation is great to finally see.

I have a bit of tweaking to the end-plate mounting pieces as some of the controls won't fit as they currently are, but it's minor changes so that's the next job. Looking forward to wiring up (once artwork installed), doing some welding for the steel frame, and putting some pulleys and a motor on it.

Installing the inserts was a bit scary... it's one of those "you only get one chance" type things. Luckily they all went in fine and flush no problems...

Naa, you can (carefully) fill with little wood glue and a dowel rod, then re-drill and try again. But I totally agree otherwise - its one of those things that you really don't want to try and fix if it goes bad.

I haven't read through the whole thread, but regards rotating the monitor, are you considering using Mala as a front end? It has a plug in for rotating monitors (",)

Currently I'm trying out GroovyArcade on Linux, as GroovyMame runs great on my monitor and it boots up in seconds. If I stick with that it looks like attractmode is the frontend I'll need to use. I have Mala on my existing cab and love it, but attractmode looks pretty good, and seems to still be in active development.

Got started on the steel frame for the rotating unit at last! Plan is to mount the whole rotating unit including the frame, into the cab as one piece, like this: -

I bought two 1000x50x6mm mild steel flat bars for the sides of the frame. First up, we laid out where we need to drill along the bar...

From left to right, the holes are: -

6.5mm mounting hole for side of cab

6.5mm mounting hole for side of cab

bottom 7.5mm bolt hole for pillow block bearing

12mm shaft hole (maybe not needed but might regret not having drilled it later!)

top 7.5mm bolt hole for pillow block bearing

6.5mm mounting hole for side of cab

I'm planning on using the same bolt/insert system as the control panel tops for mounting the frame to the cab's sides. Pretty happy with the strength they provide, and means I won't have to mess up the side panels.

Next up... all measured and marked up with a scribe ready for drilling. Both the bars were clamped together and drilled in one go....

Here's one of the pillow block bearings that will hold the rotating steel shaft. These will have countersunk machine screws on the outside of the steel frame, with hex nuts on the inside, to keep them flush to the cab sides.

And finally after a lot of drilling, and a couple of broken drill bits, and after some countersinking to get rid of the sharp bits: -

Really cool design. The only change I would make would be to center the coin door and, if possible, use the same distance bottom/front art as the bottom/side art one, so that you get one consistent bottom line around the cab.

Might be overkill, maybe not even possible, but to me the bezel screams for the stripe treatment.

That looks great.will you definitely be able to have it where the monitor comes all the way down to the cp like normal.

the only reason I ask is because other rotating cp cabs I've seen had large spaces between the cp and monitor because of the cp rotation.

this deign really looks nice

Thanks... yeah the monitor fits fine. It's slightly laid back deeper in the cab, with about an inch gap between the monitor and the glass panel covering it. It works pretty well (in sketchup anyway!) and was the only way I could get it to fit without things starting to look ugly. Pretty sure this will be ok as it's the same orientation/angle/depth that the monitor is mounted in my existing cab, which plays fine.

The top of the steel sides needed cutting at a 5 degree angle, ready for another steel mount to be welded onto the top of it for the filler panels either side of the rotating unit. We used a nice protractor contraption for this. The CP when in place in the cab will be angled at 10 degrees towards the player. The steel frame itself I am mounting at 15 degrees (so the bottom of the frame sits behind the front panel / coin door). This meant that we actually need to mount the brackets for the filler panels at 5 degrees *away from the player*. We did this by taking the centre of the bar as the origin of the slant, but after we cut it we realised that this was wrong... doing it this way means we've actually moved the origin of the rotating unit. We should have rotated the CP unit 5 degrees in place, then scribed and cut from there... It wasn't a catastrophe though, it means we've actually cut bar at the correct angle but 0.3mm lower than it should be....

Here you can see all the bits cut and ready for welding (the box tubing on the left we'd already welded a couple of evenings before). The original plan was to have one section of box tubing, but we decided on 2 for strength and to aid in dimensional conformity. The shiny marks you see are where we angle grided in preparation for welding...Bits you can see are:

box tubing for bottom frame, 1 inch square x 2 welded together

2 small brackets to weld onto the sides for connecting the box tubing to

2 filler mounts for welding on the top of the sides at the 5 degree angle

the 2 sides with holes drilled for the shaft, pillow block bearings, and mounting holes

Getting the bottom brackets aligned with the box tubing was tricky, but once we got the bracket in place squarely we were able to drill the bolt holes in the box tubing accurately...

Here's one of the bottom corners assembled, after welding the bracket to the side panel (using some very handy magnet clamps to get it perfectly square...

And here's the top filler panel mount, welded on at 5 degrees. 12mm ply filler panel will sit on top of this each side of the rotating CP unit.

And here she is, fully assembled and ready for artwork, controls, and all the complicated stuffs

Thanks guys I'm learning more DIY stuff doing this project than I think I ever have done before! Your feedback is much appreciated.

On we go then...

It's pretty tight inside the rotating unit, so we had to make some clearance cuts... good job for the CNC machine!

The top triforce (LHS) needed 5mm clearance for the defender joystick...

...and the bottom one (RHS) needed 20mm for player 2's buttons on the 2P panel...

Guess who forgot to leave clearance for the mounting bolts for one of the joysticks!?

So I got that far, I figured I'd finish assembling all the controls to make sure they all fit...

And here's a video of it rotating... flippy flappy dust washers! Not quite sure what to do about that...

In other news....

Have been thinking about the brake a lot lately. Not sure I'm so happy about the electromagnet idea after having a friend over and watching him almost wrench my existing CP off the cab playing Mr Do!. A much better way to do it could be if the power would only be required to either apply or remove the brake. So when the unit is stationary (most of the time) there is no power/forces active. I much prefer this way of thinking if it is possible...

The latest idea is to use a shot bolt on one of the triforces (opposite end to rotation pulley). This would be a pivoted spring loaded mechanism so default would be that a panel is locked in place. When rotation is about to begin, a high-torque servo would pull to release the bolt... which would then spring back when the unit has rotated to the next panel.

I'll be looking at mounting the motor soon. I can't wire the panels up yet as I don't have the artwork finalised (still have to solve how to edge-light the remaining joysticks). So there's a bit of panel-tweaking to come over the next few weeks, but things are moving forwards